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I learnt long ago, trying to please the unpleasable isn't the job of an internet forum or a city.
Ok, Charlotte's 25th annual German festival; comments: it isn't like the one in Chicago or Berlin....
Ok, Charlotte's 35th annual ..blah..blah festival: comments: it isn't like the one in New York or Paris..
Charlotte just had the world festival in Independence Park on Saturday....
I learnt long ago, trying to please the unpleasable isn't the job of an internet forum or a city.
Ok, Charlotte's 25th annual German festival; comments: it isn't like the one in Chicago or Berlin....
Ok, Charlotte's 35th annual ..blah..blah festival: comments: it isn't like the one in New York or Paris..
Charlotte just had the world festival in Independence Park on Saturday....
When people point to larger cities it proves my point. We are a mid sized city and guess what? we know it! Unfortunately some people like you feel threatened because people like Charlotte and feel the need to remind us we aren't what we know we aren't!
If I wanted NYC I would have stayed in NYC...
If I wanted LA I would have moved to LA...
when did I compare us to Houston, New Orleans, LA, Chi and NYC?
If you want larger than move.. but please stop reminding us that we aren't a large major city...
Some thoughts from a noob here. We are looking at relocating to CLT after many years in Europe. GF is from CLT, I'm from the rust-belt cities of the Midwest. After recently spending time in CLT my first question literally was "where are the old buildings?". I was looking for the old stuff, the funky, off-beat neighborhood, even if it was infiltrated by dirty, dirty hipsters bent on gentrifying some run-down section of town. As many here have mentioned already, CLT really does not have the grit of the up Easters or Rust-belters. Or a Broad Ripple type neighborhood as someone mentioned up-thread. I suppose this is something that one might just have to get used to.
On the good side, CLT is brilliantly clean, modern, super easy to get around (obviously compared to European cities). Everything seems more prosperous and upscale than the rust-belters. The homes and neighborhoods are gorgeous and close to down(up)town. I live in Germany and trust me, CLT out-Germans the Germans themselves in terms of cleanliness and "ordnung".
NC itself offers brilliant leisure and outdoor pursuits. Lake Norman a stones throw.... are you kidding? Can't beat that. Few hours to the coast, mountains.... compared to where I am in Frankfurt the outdoor stuff is just unbeatable. So we'll probably take the CLT plunge and heck if I really need the things CLT is missing... Who wants to road trip!?
Some thoughts from a noob here. We are looking at relocating to CLT after many years in Europe. GF is from CLT, I'm from the rust-belt cities of the Midwest. After recently spending time in CLT my first question literally was "where are the old buildings?". I was looking for the old stuff, the funky, off-beat neighborhood, even if it was infiltrated by dirty, dirty hipsters bent on gentrifying some run-down section of town.
Charlotte's original urban pioneers, hipsters, etc. all drive pricey cars & have the 2.14 kids in a detached home, dress business casual and go to work to pay for all of it these days. What you are speaking of disappeared long ago.
Charlotte's inner city neighborhoods were gentrified decades ago starting when the baby-boomers hit their 30 somethings in the late 70s. It started with 4th Ward, and expanded to Dilworth & Myers Park. When those places got too expensive the gentrification moved, in the late 80s to Elizabeth, Plaza-Midwood, and what's now called NoDa (North Charlotte). By the mid to late 90s to present it was South End and Wesley Heights & Wilmore. The Wesley Heights & Wilmore revival however have sputtered. They are victims the real estate boom/bust, and they have some bad defects like being next to I-77, industrial areas, and high crime areas.
Everything else was torn down by the politicians, banksters and real estate developers. This is why it looks so new here. I don't expect there will be much more gentrification in Charlotte. During the period I described above, there was also a huge growth in Charlotte's "welfare" class and along with that comes crime, animal like behavior and drugs. Some do-gooders will squeal at that characterization but when the government takes over responsibility for people the people become irresponsible. Most newcomers to this area don't want to live near such mess. You might still find a few places to be an urban pioneer, but it's a risky prospect these days.
On the good side, CLT is brilliantly clean, modern, super easy to get around (obviously compared to European cities). Everything seems more prosperous and upscale than the rust-belters. The homes and neighborhoods are gorgeous and close to down(up)town. I live in Germany and trust me, CLT out-Germans the Germans themselves in terms of cleanliness and "ordnung".
Absolutely not. I've lived in Germany for quite a bit. This is not the case at all.
1. ABSOLUTELY no ICE (The best we have is RBahn on a very bad day)
2. A lack of festivals that fit for everyone
3. A bad network for busses
4. No inner city trains Frankfurt's UBahn: [http://www.infowurm.de/img/u-s-bahn-...t-am-main.gif] Our rail network: [draw a small vertical line]
5. Walkable areas: There are very few places that you can have a walkable area in Charlotte. A walkscore [outside of a small part of downtown] [walkscore.com] is considered to be very good of 60 in CLT. Frankfurt is much better.
6. Frankfurt has many more international and [percentage wise] domestic connections at the airport.
7. Drinking is allowed outside in Germany. [I cannot find a specific law in Frankfurt barring this]. CLT you don't want to be caught doing this.
8. Autobahns [well when their not crowded]
9. Beer that is cheap and good
10. They have better import rules for selling beer in Germany than NC does. NC has a whitelist for importing beer. Germany not so much.
11. CLT is in the bible belt, this is not the case for Frankfurt.
12. Frankfurt hosts the DAX
13. Last call in NC is 2AM, I don't have the facts on it but I would suggest that this is not the case in Germany: Last call (bar term) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
14. Comparitively speaking for an average city in Germany, CLT does have a lot of tall buildings [Frankfurt is a rare exception] Germanys really don't like their Wolksratchers.
Those were all I could think of at the moment, but I'm sure theres much more to add to this list.
Side note: Considering our eductation system, there has been a German national that is attempting to seek poltical asylum over the preference to teach a religious based education: http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/04/06...ation-in-court
Forests near Frankfurt:
1. Naturpark Spessart
2. Schwarzwald
3. Much of Heildelburg
4. ...
I live in Germany and trust me, CLT out-Germans the Germans themselves in terms of cleanliness and "ordnung".
Monksy if you re-read what I wrote I was really only referring to "cleanliness and ordnung". I've lived in Frankfurt for 21 years so I'm pretty well aware of the other things you note. FWIW coming from an extremely clean country like Germany I found CLT to be even cleaner. We walked several blocks in Uptown and I only saw one single gum wrapper. That's amazing.
Monksy if you re-read what I wrote I was really only referring to "cleanliness and ordnung". I've lived in Frankfurt for 21 years so I'm pretty well aware of the other things you note. FWIW coming from an extremely clean country like Germany I found CLT to be even cleaner. We walked several blocks in Uptown and I only saw one single gum wrapper. That's amazing.
Part of my message was stating how much you'd lose. I can't disagree with you on cleanliness... but you've got to consider the amount of people within the same amount of area. Ordnung, I end to think of this as more of structure and infrastructure, as I mentioned before I would strongly disagree with CLT outdoing FRA on this one.
Well, the concept of Ordnung has very little to do with infrastructure. And I'm pretty well aware of the pros-n-cons equation for living in the States vs Germany. US wins hands down.
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